Conquest Games: Plastic Norman Infantry Reviewed!

These plastic Norman infantry miniatures were released in 2012 and were the first plastic miniatures to be produced by Conquest Games. The sculpting of these miniatures was done by the talented sculptor Bob Naismith while the plastic tooling and production was done by the experienced team over at Renedra. These miniatures finally allowed wargamers worldwide to field affordable plastic Norman armies as their more recently released kits now also feature stout Norman Knights and Medieval Archers.

The Norman Infantry

The boxed set is decorated with some nice artwork of these fierce warriors in action while the back shows the miniatures painted by the talented chaps over at Artmaster Studios. The same artists were also used to illustrate their other plastic boxed sets that became available which are at the moment the following: Norman Infantry - Norman Knights - Medieval Archers with Medieval Knights being released at Salute early 2017.

The boxed set contains enough sprues to assemble 44 highly-detailled Norman soldiers including their commanders. These stout warriors can be assembled with swords, spears, two-handed axes offering a good representation of their used and available weapons at the time. The boxed set contains eight identical soldier sprues which each contain enough parts to assemble five soldiers. The infantry bodies on each of the sprues come in three variants showing the different armour types available being one body clad in expensive chainmail, one body clad in more affordable gambeson (padded defensive jacket) and three bodies unarmoured to represent the bulk of the warrior host. Each sprue also contains five heads, so sadly no spare heads are added and two shield types five kite shields and two round wooden shields. Below you can see a picture of one of these infantry sprues.

As you can see in the pictures, these miniatures are supplied with separate lower arms allowing you assemble them in more poses. This choice although also limits the number of available poses comparing to other options such as Perry Miniatures' medieval plastic miniatures which have full seperate arms starting from the shoulder. Although there are likers of both option my preference go to the latter due to the increase amount of options and mixing with other plastic miniature sets.

The boxed set also contains two command sprues which allow you to build two command elements each existing out of two miniatures (possible to assemble as officer, hornblower, standard bearer). Each of these command sprues also contains a fallen warrior which is ideal to be used a battlefield decoration, scenic base ornament or to make a useful casualty marker. See the command sprue picture below for more details of the weapon choice and body poses.

The last miniature sprue included in the boxed set is the weapon sprues which contains all sorts of extra weapons and shields allowing further assembly possibilities for your warrior or command miniatures. Would have been nice to have some extra heads on this sprue but sadly again no extra heads.

The last sprue included are the common Renedra square plastic bases which come in a variety of colors depending from which miniature company you buy. In the case of Conquest Games, they have opted for the green variant. These bases allow you to base your miniatures for mass battle games so if you're looking to field them for skirmish games you will have to supply your own round bases.

The assembly

The assembly of these miniature is quite straightforward if you're already familiar with assembling plastic miniatures or model kits. First of all you need to carefully remove all parts using a hobby clipper tool. Then you clean all the excess pieces of sprue from the bits using either viles or a sharp hobby knife. After you have prepared all of these pieces you can now fit all parts and create their different poses. When you're happy with the look you can now assemble them with plastic glue from your favorite hobby brand.

Scale Comparison

These miniatures scale well with other manufacturers although they are a bit bulkier than Perry miniatures sculpted metal and plastic miniatures. In the following pictures you can clearly see how they scale up next to these miniatures from both Perry Miniatures and GW's LOTR range.

The Conclusion

As mentionned before if you're looking to create an affordable Norman army or warband Conquest Games is certainly the way to go as they offers loads of good-looking miniatures at a very good price. You can even buy other important parts of your army such as knights and archers also in plastic from them, creating a consistent look as they were all sculpted by the same sculptor. Although sold as historical Norman miniatures you can easily use these fine miniatures for fantasy battles set in numerous settings such as The Lord of the Rings, A Game of Thrones and more. You can now buy these miniatures at Conquest Games here for £20.00

Disclaimer - We received these miniatures for free from Conquest Games for reviewing purposes. Please note that this doesn't influence our review as we always strive to supply you with our own independent and honest opinion about the wargame products reviewed. Review edited on 21/01/2017

7 comments:

I picked up a box of these at the Claymore Show in Edinburgh a couple of weeks back and although I have still to start putting them together I was impressed at the contents of the box and the sculpting of the figures

Its truly a great idea to have conquest games plastic Norman infantry. I think that it would be a great collection on my cabinet. I know that my nephew would love to have those plastic Norman infantry as toys.

Thanks, that was really useful, I plan to buy some to make woodsmen for Lord of the Rings, I appreciated the comparison scale pictures, but I also have SAGA saxons etc and its good to see the sprues have round shields as well.

Hi Andy, Glad you liked the review. I'm looking forward in seeing your Lord of the Rings Woodsmen and if you need some Orc opponents make sure to check out the Wargames Factory ones of which I also have reviews.